A curious little novella about a man a two-dimensional world thinking literally out of the box. First he explains his world in which the angles you haA curious little novella about a man a two-dimensional world thinking literally out of the box. First he explains his world in which the angles you have the higher social status you have in Flatland - Circles being the highest rank. He meets someone from Lineland (one-dimensional) who is incapable of understanding Flatland and he meets Sphere from Spaceland (three dimenions) and he is able himself to comprehend the difference between "up" and "North". However, Sphere cannot extrapolate to 4+ dimensions and when the protagonist returns to Flatland and tries to explain Spaceland, he is imprisoned as a heretic.
The text is a social criticism on the rigid thinking of hierarchal social ranks, the dogmatism and often anti-scientific bent of religion, and also has a feminist bent to it as well. A fascinating and mind-bending little book that has not aged a day after almost a century and a half....more
I ordered this one and got a copy printed on really poor quality paper in India. WTF? Anyway, it is for uber-geeks, this is a classic for understandinI ordered this one and got a copy printed on really poor quality paper in India. WTF? Anyway, it is for uber-geeks, this is a classic for understanding the guts of Unix (and therefore OS X and LINUX) from the lowest level. A book that changed the world as well because it makes possible the development of kernel drivers and device drivers which led to graphics adapters and libraries and via a long path to Grand Theft Auto :)...more
Yes, this is geekdom at its finest. Richard Steven's book is what really created the internet. Before this book, we were lost in byzantine networks liYes, this is geekdom at its finest. Richard Steven's book is what really created the internet. Before this book, we were lost in byzantine networks like TokenRing (!!!) and after, we finally could understand the true potential of TCP/IP and network programming. The world has never been the same since this book was published. OK, it is a technical text but it is a critical one for geeks that want to understand the nuts and bolts of networking....more
A classic like all of Richard Steven's books about networking, TCP/IP Protocols Vol 1 is a critical formative text on how the internet was created. AsA classic like all of Richard Steven's books about networking, TCP/IP Protocols Vol 1 is a critical formative text on how the internet was created. As I have said elsewhere, without TCP/IP there would be no Google, no Facebook, and no Drumpf? Oops......more
I gave this one 5* because it is an excellent reference for UNIX geeks and belongs in the standard IT cannon for us old farts that came up through theI gave this one 5* because it is an excellent reference for UNIX geeks and belongs in the standard IT cannon for us old farts that came up through the pre-Facebook Era of the 80s and 90s. Highly readable and with excellent examples. A classic....more
Honestly, I kind of detest C++ as a language - too easy to write shitty code, too easy to lose pointers and leak memory, and it was kind of a hack to Honestly, I kind of detest C++ as a language - too easy to write shitty code, too easy to lose pointers and leak memory, and it was kind of a hack to force object oriented programming onto C. All that being said, this is the C++ Bible by Stroustrup and had a vast impact on computing in the 90s and 2000s before Java and its many children and inspired cousins took over. Highly readable (for a geek computer language book), it is a nerd classic....more
For evolution of the planet earth and our modern understanding of biology, there was Darwin's Origin of the Species. For mathematics, there was NewtonFor evolution of the planet earth and our modern understanding of biology, there was Darwin's Origin of the Species. For mathematics, there was Newton's Philosophi忙 Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Well, for the internet, for Facebook, for LinkedIn, Twitter, Instgram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Pornhub amd even the odious website for Justin Bieber would never have existed without Kernigan and Ritchie (more affectionately known as K&R)'s classic, The C Programming Language. What language was TCP/IP written in? C. What language inspired both C++ and Java (and the abominable C#)? C. What language are most libraries on most operating systems written in if not assembler? C. The book is the raging hardon that spawned the last 40 some-odd years of quantum leaps in computer science and changed humanity forever? Am I exaggerating? Hardly. This book is highly readable (ok a bit dry but did you try reading Darwin or Newton? They are longer and dryer believe you me!). If you want to geek out on just one book then this is the one. RIP Ritchie and long live Kernigan! ...more
If K&R is what spawned the internet and its denizens like Facebook and Google, it is this book that created the 3D graphics industry - without it, forIf K&R is what spawned the internet and its denizens like Facebook and Google, it is this book that created the 3D graphics industry - without it, forget your PS4, XBOX, 3DS, Pixar, DreamsWorks, etc. and thus no Avengers flicks or - god forbid - Shrek movies! Hollywood would be arguably still story driven and better but video games like GTA, Minecraft, Assassin's Creed, etc would have been impossible. I actually had acquired a rare geek-boner 1st edition but it was water damaged during a basement flood when I had to leave it in storage. Many bitter tears were shed. Fortunately, I still had the bigger 2nd edition to comfort me. I actually needed code in this book for my first real job back in '92. How the world has changed. Five stars for excellence and massive impact on gamers and movie fans alike....more
I think I forgot to mention that I finished Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I haven鈥檛 started the sequel 鈥淪uperfreakonomics鈥� yI think I forgot to mention that I finished Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I haven鈥檛 started the sequel 鈥淪uperfreakonomics鈥� yet but the first one, well, it started out really interesting but I kind of lost their logic at the end. The book is a collaboration between a 鈥渞ogue鈥� economist, Levitt, and a writer, Dubner, about trying to discount 鈥渃ommon wisdom鈥� and id茅es re莽us with economic analysis and they reach some interesting and also bizarre conclusions. It starts out interesting about cheating which links teachers 鈥� perhaps the most interesting study in the book 鈥� and sumo wrestlers. The irony here is that in Japan just this year (several years after the publication of the book), the sumo match-fixing has come public and they have even been reduced to giving tickets away for free because the Japanese were so disillusioned with the revelations of corruption and links with the yakuza. Anyway, there are also interesting articles about drug dealers and real estate agents. They also talked about the Klu Klux Klan and mentioned an interesting person, Stetson Kennedy, who infiltrated that organization way back when. What they forgot to mention about him is that he actually ran for president once on an independent ticket for justice 鈥� I know that because Billy Bragg and Wilco covered the Woody Guthrie song about Stetson Kennedy on their Mermaid Avenue album (an absolute must if you don鈥檛 have it!). Then you hit the controversial section where they blame the sudden drop of crime in the 90s to abortion. I suppose that they could be right and the hypothesis is certainly interesting but I think they were going more for shock value than literary or economic value in the 鈥�1 baby equals 8 abortions鈥� 鈥� at least I couldn鈥檛 really see where they wanted to go with that. Towards the end also, I felt that it starts to wander a bit. I didn鈥檛 know what the point they wanted to make actually was in belittling the names that african-americans give to their kids and couldn鈥檛 really see the link they were trying to make with grades and stuff. While it is a fascinating read 鈥� particularly the first three chapters 鈥� the end was a bit, well, confusing to be honest. I hope that Superfreakonomics will keep a more even rhythm.
OK so enough blather. I think Burn Notice might be the funnier alternative here with perhaps a dose of Episodes or Shameless thrown in. Enjoy your weekend, dear reader...more
A classic text where the amazing Stephen Hawking explains string theory and quantum mechanics "for dummies." Highly readable and even comical, it is aA classic text where the amazing Stephen Hawking explains string theory and quantum mechanics "for dummies." Highly readable and even comical, it is a superb read. I need to go back and read this one again myself!...more
I think I mentioned in a couple of posts that I was trying to get through G枚del, Escher, Bach: A Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It is heady readiI think I mentioned in a couple of posts that I was trying to get through G枚del, Escher, Bach: A Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It is heady reading to be sure. I was able to follow the discussion up to BLooP, FLooP and GLooP pretty much, but he has lost me now in the proof-pair chapter. I am a self-proclaimed nerd, fine but perhaps I need to be a dweeb and geekster too to fully comprehend some of this stuff. OK, so the incompleteness theory, I got that. I understand the complexity now of fugues and appreciate the Crab/Anteater/Achilles/Tortoise dialogs especially the Aunt Hillary one. I think they are pretty ingenious 鈥� if occasionally silly too. Its just that now when he is trying to prove incompleteness by combining his various schemas of TNT and proof pairs with G枚delian numbers, I got a bit lost. I need to remotivate myself to continue though because the hardcore AI stuff is coming up as well as DNA and so forth and I think that鈥檚 going to be really interesting. Or else I am going to get lost again.
I had seen this book back in college and it has been on my 鈥減robably impossible to read but then that鈥檚 why I need to read it list鈥� list for years. Others that in the past 15 years I was able to tackle include Dosto 鈥淏rothers Karamazov (read 3 times in two languages English and French), Proust 鈥淟a Recherche du Temps Perdu (read once thru all 3000 or so pages in French), Joyce鈥檚 鈥淯lysses鈥� (read three times), Tolstoy鈥檚 鈥淲ar and Peace鈥� (read once in the excellent French translation), etc. GEB just never bubbled up to the top of the list until late last year. After this one, I believe the next one will be 鈥淥n the Shoulder鈥檚 of Giants鈥� edited by Stephen Hawking.
So did any of you readers ever get all the way through GEB? I am optimistic that I鈥檒l be able to but I am already wondering whether it is already obsolete? I mean it was written 32 years ago 鈥� that is like before Java and Ruby 鈥� 5 years before Mark Zuckerberg was even born鈥 mean the internet didn鈥檛 even exist back in 1979鈥ut I get the sneaking suspicion that apart from the 1984 solution of Fermat鈥檚 theorem, not all that much progress has been made over the topics that Hofstadter brings up here. I checked and still noone has been able to build a computer that can run GLooP鈥�
I鈥檓 also curious whether my readers also have lists with seemingly insurmountable obstacles such as super long or super difficult books鈥�
OK so now I am re-psyched 鈥� here we go for Self-Ref and Self-Rep!...more
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